Five deep dives into improving NHS productivity
About 3 mins
Put simply, ‘NHS productivity’ determines how much care is delivered with the resources available. It measures how well the health service can turn ‘inputs’ (like staff, drugs and equipment) into outputs (like appointments and operations). But of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
We’ve collected five of our best deep dives to help you understand NHS productivity and why it’s fallen over recent years (including the impact of the pandemic). These pieces cover how productivity in the health service can be improved, and what role increased use of technology and artificial intelligence will play.
1. The unsustainable is not sustained: why productivity is fundamental to the future of the NHS
In her REAL Challenge lecture from December 2023, Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, argued that addressing and improving productivity is essential to securing the future of the NHS. Looking ahead to the 100th anniversary of the NHS and applying her experience as an economist, she set out the organisational and cultural changes needed to meet the challenges facing the health service.
Her lecture explores four areas key to improving productivity: investment, digitisation, demand management and reconsidering the private–public boundary, and concludes that fundamental process re-engineering is essential for the NHS.
2. NHS productivity: from diagnosis to action
This recent blog from Charles Tallack and Elaine Kelly summarises key research into productivity in the NHS and provides five policy areas where action needs to be focused.
Crucially, they say improving productivity is not about already hard-pressed and exhausted staff working harder. Instead, it’s about the whole service working efficiently together, with the right level and mix of resources.
3. Limp productivity and what to do about it
This episode of the Health Foundation podcast from earlier this year takes an engaging look at productivity in the NHS. Our Chief Executive, Jennifer Dixon, speaks to Anita Charlesworth, Chief Economist and Director of the REAL Centre at the Health Foundation, and Neil Sebire, Professor of Pathology and Chief Research Information Officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust.
Improving NHS productivity is a key national priority. But what’s behind the slowdown and can it be reversed? They discuss why activity levels have not been keeping pace with recent increases in NHS funding and staffing. What can be done, and is implementing new technologies a solution worth banking on?
4. Which technologies offer the biggest opportunities to save time in the NHS?
With the NHS facing rising demand and persistent workforce shortages, there are widespread hopes that technology and AI can help alleviate the pressure by freeing up staff to spend more time on patient care.
Are these hopes plausible? We decided to ask clinical staff what they think, working with eight professional bodies to survey over 500 clinicians and interview experts on the use of AI and technology in health care.
5. How would clinicians use time freed up by technology?
In addition to the potential for technology to improve clinical effectiveness and patient experience, the idea that it can free up ‘time to care’ for NHS staff has become a major focus of health policy in recent years. But how realistic is it to think that freed up time will all go towards patient care? There is currently little known about how freed-up time is repurposed.
This long read summarises the results of our research exploring how freed-up time might be used, drawing on a survey of clinical staff, expert interviews and a rapid evidence review.
This content originally featured in our email newsletter, which explores perspectives and expert opinion on a different health or health care topic each month.